


Incubus

by gerbilfluff



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Body Horror, Demonic Possession, M/M, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Other, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:56:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3179495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gerbilfluff/pseuds/gerbilfluff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gravity Falls, 1982. After parting ways with Bill Cipher a second time, Nicodemus Smith wakes up to find his lover next to him in bed. But Ted's been dead for months... hasn't he?</p><p>A sequel of sorts to "First Time's the Charm."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Woo! It’s kinda sorta the sequel to “First Time’s The Charm”!
> 
> I say “kinda sorta” ‘cause this one's a bit of a different animal than the original fic. No possession hijinks to be found here. Way more Mindscape goings-on. Also my first try at writing angstfic. This isn’t 100% complete just yet-- and in fact, if you hate cliffhangers, you might want to wait on this one ‘till I post the second part, because the first chapter ends on a *super* down note. (There’s a happy ending of sorts, I promise!) 
> 
> But anyhow. I don’t own the characters and concepts of Gravity Falls; I can only lay claim to Nicodemus Smith and his guy Ted. No profit’s being made from this file. This story contains oral and anal sex between two human male bodies, as well as references to original character death and squishy eldrich horrors beyond our comprehension. If you’re below the legal or emotional age for these concepts, or the idea of triangle/human sex in general, no worries, but I suggest you keep scrolling.
> 
> The rest of you trianglefuckers, enjoy!

Incubus  
by Apricot the Gerbil

 

_~ a nameless apartment duplex in Gravity Falls, 1982 ~_

There was something next to him in bed. Something warm.

Nicodemus stirred under the covers, turning to see shaggy, sandy-blond hair on the pillow beside him. A man. Curled on his side. Hands bunched under the pillow. Hogging the blankets without mercy. Like he always did.

Nick rubbed the sleep from his eyes… then jolted awake, as realization hit. “Ted?!” he blurted.

"Hmm?" The blankets rustled as his lover rolled to face him, a smile winking out through the unruly scruff upon his face. "Mornin’, sunshine. What’s the matter? Nightmares again?"

Nick shook his head slowly, trembling. His stare was unblinking, like the man would disappear if he closed his eyes.

"You… you’re  _dead,”_ he whispered.

"Heh. Am I? Got one hell of a heartbeat for a dead guy," Ted said. He slid a broad, hairy arm out from under his pillow to bring Nick’s hand to his chest, pressing the palm to his cotton undershirt.

Nick relaxed at the steady, thudding pulse, though his thoughts refused to settle. He pawed at the bedside table for his glasses and slid them on. His eyes darted about the room… The apartment they’d shared for the last ten-odd years.

Memories swarmed over him. Down the hall was the second bedroom they set up to convince guests the pair were bachelor housemates. Downstairs was the kitchen with the hideous brass rooster sculpture on the table Nick couldn’t stand, but never got rid of, because Ted liked it so much. Where Ted made the most amazing scrambled eggs the same way for him every morning, that he hadn’t tasted in… how long?

"But… you…" Nick said. No words seemed right. He sagged against the sheets. "The cancer… I  _saw_  you leave!”

"Woof. Sounds like a doozy of a nightmare, all right." Ted curled his arm around the slightly smaller man. "You want me to calm you down?"

Nick’s eyes went wide at the hand slinking under his briefs, fingers ghosting past his prick to cup the swell of his ballsack. A callus-cracked palm eased against the hairs and flesh in small circling whorls; an ever-so-gentle massage. “Mmm… That’s. Really nice,” Nick murmured.

"More where that came from, if you’re feelin’ it." The fingertips moved to slide along either side of his dick, teasing up the shaft, and back down, coaxing him hard against his underwear.

"Hnn. Hold off," said Nick, squirming awkwardly in Ted’s grip. "This feels. SO wrong. I just decided where I was going to put your urn last night, okay? And now I wake up and you’re  _here,_ and… all up in my business, it’s just…”

Ted’s hand stilled. “Where’d you put it?”

"Huh? Oh. On the mantle, in the living room. I put the rooster up there, next to you. Thought you’d…" His voice faltered. "That you’d like it that way." 

A pause. Ted’s palm shifted to rub soothingly along Nick’s thigh. “Well, I won’t push you. But  _I_  just woke up from a dream where we were both goin’ at it like wildcats, and I wouldn’t mind picking up from there.” He smiled, teasing. “Unless you wanna keep telling me how dead I am.”

Nick relaxed somewhat, pressing back against the radiator-warmth of the body spooning him. “Sorry. Just a little weirded out, is all. It seemed so real.” He stared into the distance a moment longer, feeling that familiar callus roll rough over his skin…

He had the most  _confusing_  boner right now.

"So… Let’s say I can handle ‘weird,’" Nick said, clasping his hand over Ted’s to bring it to a stop. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

Ted said nothing, merely shooting Nick an impish smirk as his head slunk under the covers. Nick yelped at his underwear sliding down his legs, but there wasn’t a complaint to be found in the noises coming out of him once Ted’s tongue met his aching hard-on. Stubble and beard hair scuffed the tender insides of his thighs, making him flinch and gasp at the tickling despite himself.

"Ted…! Oh god, I thought you didn’t like giving heeaa-OH. Ohhh,  _wow._ I. Please, that… feels amazing—” he managed, his eyes rolling back… to land on the clock on the bedside. He did a double-take, clutching a handful of Ted’s hair harder. _“Ah!_ It’s already past ten! Don’t you have to be at the garage?”

Silence from under the covers. The dick slurped out slowly from Ted’s mouth. “It’s… Saturday?” Nick heard him mumble.

"Yeah, you work Saturdays!"

Ted uttered what sounded like an expletive into Nick’s thigh. He lifted the blanket to stare at his partner, adding, “I’ve got your fun tube halfway down my throat, and you’re worried I’m gonna be late for work?”

"Well your job’s  _important_  is all. You never know when someone in town’s going to need a mechanic, and…” Nick trailed off. “Wait. What did you call it?”

Ted’s eyes bulged open at the mistake. “Wuh-oh.”

It took a moment, but Nick’s eyes swept the room again, realization finally snapping into place. Save for the two of them and the bed, everything was in washed-out shades of gray.

Nick spit the name like it was curdled milk. “BILL.”

The glowing yellow triangle poked out from under the blanket, raising his hands away from Nick’s boner in surrender. _“Whoa_ ho ho. Okay. Not gonna lie… This looks bad. But let me explain.”

"You— you honestly—" His prick all but wilted on the spot, but the rage built slowly, coloring Nick’s face as he sputtered to form words. "You  _would_ honestly?! Try? to— ohhh,  _HOW COULD YOU?!”_  He grabbed the nearest object, his pillow, and whipped it at Bill’s single eye.

Only to have the triangle engulf it whole. It disappeared into his form without a sound, rippling it like a pond.

Nick’s arms were still raised in shivery twin fists, but instead of swinging, he crumpled to the mattress, burying his face in the blankets and screaming into them.

Bill squinted towards the ceiling as the muffled wailing went on… froze, hearing Nick take a deep breath… only to continue screaming.  _"Awk-_ waaard,” Bill said, and patted the top of Nick’s head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Glasses! I was only trying to do you a favor!”

The blankets lifted. Nick’s eyes were already red-rimmed and brimming with tears. "How. In that _sick_ mind of yours. Is THIS doing me a  _favor?!”_

"You’re kidding, right?" Bill crossed his arms, floating out from the bedcovers to stare Nick down in midair. "I’ve seen a lot of humans come and go, okay? More of ‘em than you could wrap that wet noodle you call a brain around. And if you had  _any idea_  what some of them would trade for one more day with someone who’s dead? We’re talking sacrificing whole future generations here! And I’m not asking anywhere near that!”

"…’Asking’?" Nick grabbed off his glasses to wipe at his eyes with the back of a hand, still glaring as he slipped them back on. "I said you could _possess_  me, not screw with my mind whenever you feel like it! What more do you want from me?”

"Well. I won’t mince words with ya," said Bill. "There’s things out there even more powerful than I am. Not many, I mean, but." The triangle slowly sank in midair as he added, "I kinda. Sorta. Ruined a fertility ritual one of them had going on. Long story." He rolled his eye, squinting in amusement. "Trust me, if they hadn’t noticed anything was missing, it would’ve been  _hilarious._

"But my point is, I need a replacement dose of that milk you shoot out your fun tube, PRONTO, before they find out where I am. This sucker’s already caught every illusion I made of me to give ‘em the slip, and I made a  _lot._ S’only a matter of time before they track down the real deal.” Shadows drizzled down from the bottom of Bill’s hat, cloaking his form in oily darkness; his eye blinked to become a tiny Earth in flames, complete with tinier distant screams. “You don’t wanna  _know_  what they could do to this part of the multiverse if they don’t get what they’re after.”

Nick stared back at him in disbelief. “So… you’re seriously telling me you need my semen to save the world?”

"Well." Another blink, and Bill was his usual yellow self. He shrugged stickly arms. "Not  _yours,_ exactly. But it’s gotta be willfully given, from something at least  _kinda_  sentient.” He tapped at his bow tie. Mysterious symbols blinked rapid-fire in place of his pupil— stars, trees, more, too fast to make out— before stopping on a pair of glasses. “And I thought to myself, who do I know who hasn’t gotten laid in a while?”

Nick tossed up his hands, exasperated. “Because my partner’s been DEAD!”

"Details, details." The triangle twirled the tiny cane suddenly in his hands. "You can have him back for one last fling…" His eye widened, veins throbbing around its edges to a thudding heartbeat, then blinked back to normal. "All you need to do is give me what squirts out of you once you’re done! Honestly, you don’t know how good a deal you’re getting here. It’s only ‘cause I’m in a bind."

Nick snorted. “It won’t be Ted, it’ll be _you!”_

"Close enough! I’ve already gone through the rest of your memories of him while we’ve been talking. I’ll look like him, sound like him—"

"Wait, you’ve been reading my thoughts?" Nick demanded, clutching at his saltpeppered hair.  _"Stop reading my thoughts!"_

Bill’s eye narrowed. “Look, Glasses. I’m giving you this chance  _once._ I don’t have a lot of time to work with here, so if you don’t want it, I’ve got to hurry and try someone else.” An image flickered across Bill’s form: Nick himself in bed, clinging to his pillow in the dark, face shiny with another night’s tears. “D’you want to cry yourself to sleep over how your guy’s not there  _again,_ or do you want him to rock your world one more time?”

Nicodemus hung his head, saying nothing.

Blue flames roared to life in Bill’s hands. “Last time I’ll ask, buddy.” He held out his arm. “Whaddaya say?”

Cold silence.

Nick grit his teeth.

Their hands clasped.

———

There was something next to him in bed. Something warm.

Nick reached for his glasses, turning to stare at the body before him with hollow eyes. Reached to brush his fingers through shaggy, sandy hair.

"Hm?" Stirring, under the covers. Ted rolled over to face him. "Mornin’, sunshine. What’s—"

Nick pulled him in for a kiss on the mouth so strong, it had the other man twisting and making a light murmuring sound of confusion.

"Wow," Ted chuckled when they parted at last. "Someone slept well!"

"I don’t care who you really are," Nick said, gripping at Ted’s thin white undershirt. Burrowing facefirst against the stubble lining his furry chin. Breathing in the musk and sweat and the faint stink of gasoline that always clung to Ted from the garage. "Just. Make me forget. Just for a little while?"

"Hey." Ted tilted Nick’s head to face him, brushing stray graying hairs from his brow. "Why’re you crying? I’m right here."

This only made the tears fall harder. “You’re too good at this,” Nick moaned to him, before grabbing him in a hug that seemed to go on forever.

Until a squirt of what looked like blood dripped onto Nick’s cheek from above.

Ted’s body went tense in his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m  _really_  sorry you have no idea,” Ted said, staring up at the thin, cracklike sliver burbling its way across the ceiling. Clusters of shiny black eyes winked open where it wriggled.

Nick had seen few things stranger than this, but he  _was_  from Gravity Falls, after all. He took in the bristling display above him with a frown. “So… that’s it? We’re too late?” he asked grimly.

"No. We’ve got some time yet. Longer than you’d think." Ted looked pained. "But. Yeah." He planted a kiss over the stain on Nick’s cheek, a little smack-pop, the same kind he’d give before heading to work each morning. "Let’s do this. We can try anything you want."

"I… I want…" Even with Ted there, it was becoming hard for Nick to ignore that the wallpaper around them was slowly gelling into meat… No, not just meat. The bands of a ribcage. The ceiling began fluttering and relaxing with the steady elasticity of a diaphragm.

Ted looked over his shoulder, then leaned closer. “It’s… gonna do that,” he muttered. He ran a callused hand down along Nick’s back. “You’re trembling.”

"Yeah. Well," said Nick, staring at the gnarled clots of tissue slithering their way down from the ceiling as they branched off and strayed wider. He twisted around onto his stomach, hugging his pillow with both hands. "You remember that thing I saw in the lake, the time we tried rowing? This is getting  _way_  more intense than that.”

"Hey, hey. It’s gonna be okay. Your Teddy-bear’s here, I’ve got you," Ted soothed him, hands still stroking up and down his back. "Heh. You look like I just brought you home from the lounge, our first night."

Nick relaxed slightly at the memory. “You know? I never told you, but. I was so scared it was going to hurt. The other guy I’d been with before was… huge.”

Ted leaned in for another kiss to the back of his neck, covering Nick’s body with his own. “Damn, but you’re hot when you’re trembly,” he said. “You were back then, and you are now.” Ted slid his beard to scuff around the crook of Nick’s right shoulder, then suckled on the skin there.

Nick choked back a moan. Right on his sweet spot. “If you’re trying to get me in the mood fast, it’s working,” he said.

"Yeah?" came Ted’s voice at his ear, deep and playful.

Nick reached to tug down his own briefs, propping himself onto hands and knees. “I want you inside me. Right now, god, I  _need_  it.”

He felt warm fingertips swirling around his pucker, gliding in like they were made entirely of lube— and, at this point, Nick wouldn’t be surprised if they were. There was that tantalizingly familiar thickness rubbing along the cleft of his ass, as broad hands spread him apart, and—

 _"Ghh…!"_ Nick breathed, squirming as Ted pressed in, and  _in,_ with none of the pesky ‘easing’ business usually needed in reality. “That’s it… Just like that.” That solid weight over him, starting to move, faster, leg hair brushing against his, a “god you’re beautiful” huffed against his back… 

A hand wrapped around the hard-on thudding strong between Nick’s legs. Started to pump him, up and down.

It’d been so long. Already, his hips were bucking, jerking upwards— getting close, he could feel it—

"Wait," he managed, pressing back against the body on top of him. "Stop. Please not yet."

Ted made a confused “Wuh?” sound, faltering in mid-stroke.

"I want… to see your face," Nick panted.

There was silence. Or, to be fair, only the rumbling gurgles from whatever was growing behind them.

Ted drew a wary breath and slid out, quick and slippery enough for an eye-bulge and an  _"ah..!"_  of surprise from Nick. He covered Nick’s glasses with his hands, saying “Trust me. Don’t look,” and rolled underneath him, pulling Nick on top so they were facing each other.

As soon as they’d switched, warm liquid dribbled waxlike across Nick’s back, making him flinch. He could feel thick, wet fronds of… something… slinking and curling over his skin, as though they were tasting him.

But all he could see was Ted, there on the bed with him.

Nick wasn’t afraid.

Stumpy nubs began to ripple against his body, like a wave of fingers, or udders, as he spread himself for Ted to push his way in once more. He guided Ted’s hand to the erection bobbing stiff before him, sighing happily as his lover’s rough skin rasped over his tenderest spots.

He wasn’t expecting the squelch when his hand clasped the blankets. Or, as a half-lidded glance confirmed, that the bed beneath them had congealed into a mass of spongy red viscera. Yet none of this seemed important, compared to the face of the man underneath him. How it lit up at Nick’s strangled “M’gonna… Ted m’gonna come I’m…”

Ted grinned, watching Nick hump his fist. “Show me. Let your Teddy-bear see how pretty you come.”

Their eyes met. “L-love you so… so _muu—”_  Nick huffed, before his voice cracked away to a whimper. Warm strings of jism streaked across Ted’s white cotton undershirt.

The world froze.

Nick tried to move, but couldn’t, trapped in mid-O-face from his hunched pose upon the “bed.” Where his lover had been a second ago, ass-deep inside him, there was only a floating triangle, tipping his hat to the landscape of mystery guts around them, chittering in some unknown tongue (though the first word sounded surprisingly close to “Buddyyyyy…!”).

He could only listen to the exchange of chitters and rumbling from where he lay. From the corner of his eye, he saw Bill hold up a tangle of something dripping through his stickly hands, which disappeared into the cavernous meat-folds the room had become.

Nick could hear the question lilting in Bill’s voice, even if the words were gibberish. There was a light earthquake of agreement.

And Nicodemus woke up in his bed. 

Alone.

 

He didn’t move from the mattress for the next three days.

 

_~ to be continued ~_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s here! I finally FINALLY finished it!! And it caught up with the rest of the Gravity Falls timeline, for once!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: vaguely alluded to oral and anal sex between two men, brief self-harm through demon possession, STD brought up without fully exploring how devastating a death sentence it was at the time, character death across more than one timeline.

Chapter 2

  
It was around when the rest of Nick's goateed and mustached face got lost somewhere between stubble and five o' clock shadow that the phone calls began. From work, most likely. He curled the blankets tighter over his head, surprising himself at how little he cared.  
  
What would he even tell them? He couldn't handle losing his roommate all over again? His _roommate_. Nick's face twisted bitterly at the thought of trotting out that lie any more than he already had, these past couple months since the funeral.  
  
And if he went downstairs to answer the phone in the kitchen, he'd have to pass through the living room, and see-- _it_ \-- that _thing_ there on the mantle he could never hold again, never do _what he just did with_ again, couldn't--  
  
The ringing stopped.  
  
Nick's teeth released his lower lip. He sighed at the copper taste that followed. Ted used to hate it when he did that.  
  
His gaze flicked to the bedside clock yet again. The numbers still shone red. Not gray. _Red_. Good. Nick couldn't stand the idea of being a plaything for _HIM_ again, so help him--  
  
"So help you what?"  
  
_"Aaa...!"_ yelped Nick, hands reflexively raising over his face. He lowered them slowly, eyes rushing to the... gray... numbers on the clock.  
  
With a heavy sigh, he sunk his head into his pillow in defeat. "What do you want now?" he asked the floating triangle before him.  
  
"Gotta tell ya, Glasses, you've got a funny way of showing gratitude," said Bill. He squinted down at Nick, his arms crossed huffily. "I bring your dead boyfriend back for one night, and suddenly your whole future timeline looks like a tire fire! You were supposed to lose your job, sure, but--" Bill listed on his stickly fingers-- "Staying here in bed 'till they kick you out of your apartment? Freezing to death under an overpass a month from now when the first cold snap comes? It's almost like my help traumatized you or something!"  
  
"How about that," Nick replied numbly, curling over to turn his back to the demon.  
   
The thoughts connected. He swished back again. "Wait. What do you mean, I was _supposed_ to lose my job?"  
  
Bill gives him a genial chuckle. "Well. I can't give _everything_ away, but that little hero mission I had you take care of a few days ago showed me you're perfect for some plans I've had in the works for a good, long time now. All you have to do is go to this mysterious cottage a few miles from here in a couple days, and--"  
  
"No," Nick says firmly, turning away from Bill for real this time.  
  
Only to find himself resting upon a yellow pillow with one eye and a bow tie. "Don't you make me beg," Nick's pillow said, leering at him. "I _need_ you, Glasses. Even if I can't say why yet."  
  
Nick picked up the Billow. "I don't. WANT. your help."  
  
"Are you sure?" his pillow countered. "I don't want to tip my hand too much, but..." The pillow turned a patchy mold-black under Nick's chin. "There's a new plague coming on the horizon for you humans, any month now. It's technically already here! And if you're gonna be after a new beau anytime soon, I know who to aim for, even if your dating pool's about to get way, _way_ smaller."  
  
"Stay away from me," Nick growled to the bow-tied pillow in his hands.  
  
"There'll be a guy whose car's going to break down on the outskirts of town this Thursday--"  
  
"I don't care!"  
  
"Kinda young. Kinda buff. And smarts for _miles_. Fun side note: he has a thing for being collared up like a dog, even if he'll never admit it, so if you want in on that tidbit, you're gonna have to--"  
  
"SHUT. UP." Nick flung the Billow as far as he could out of his reach.  
  
The pillow slowly floated up from the edge of the bed, transforming back to Bill's familiar yellow points and stick-limbs. He dusted off where Nick's face had rested, as though it had dirtied him somehow. "Hmm. Ever notice how you start out all nice and polite and 'please Mister Bill sir,' until somebody isn't nice and polite back to you? Kind of a character flaw. I'd work on that."  
  
"I don't want your help anymore," said Nick through grit teeth. "You never said you'd break my heart, you bastard. You had _no right_ to use Ted as some kind of sick pawn to get me to dance for you." Nick's voice lowered. "He's worth so much more than that. Even as a memory."  
   
Bill's eye bulged. Just for a moment, and he was back to his normal impossible-to-read self. "I don't think you know what you're up against here, Glasses. The fate of entire _worlds_ rests on these next couple days. I'm not asking you to get in on this. I'm _telling_ you." Bill squinted in disbelief. "And you'd give up everything I'm about to give you over a silly-- heart? Breaking? I don't even know what that means. Your heart's in one piece just _fine."_  
  
"Whatever you're offering, I don't care," Nick said. "What if I don't _want_ to meet this guy?"  
  
Bill paused.  
  
And laughed.  
  
Cackled, really.  
  
"It would be cute to hear you try to lie so badly," said Bill, shifting from his usual calm yellow to an irritated red. "Seriously? I can taste people's fears, you know. And you've been triple-decker fudge-coated _terrified_ of making a wrong move on your own since you were learning to walk. It's why you summoned me in the first place!" Before Nick could react, Bill was there at his shoulder, leaning in as though to share a secret. "Look. You and I both know you'd rather take orders forever than not have somebody else you can blame for screwing up. Don't try playing noble half a century into the game, kiddo."  
  
Nick hesitates, biting his lip as he fidgets along the neckline of his nightgown.  
  
"I'm considering it a favor for longtime service, on the house, from me to you. It'll be so much _easier_ this way. C'mon, buddy." Bill spreads his arms, pleasantly yellow again. "You're already out of the job you've had since you were a college grad. Nowhere to go but up, am I right?"  
  
After a long, resigned pause, Nick's head finally sinks against his chest. "Where do I go this Thursday again?"  
  
"Atta boy!" chirps Bill. "Just take Woodpecker Road, then a left at Gopher Avenue, at noon. The guy's car will've just broken down." He blinks, looking at the ceiling. "Aaaand a monster will've probably just eaten his car, so I suggest bringing your own ride."  
  
Nick points at Bill's lone eye and declares, "This isn't a promise."  
  
So of course, he's driving down Gopher Avenue that Thursday. Of _course_ he is.  
  
\------  
  
The first thing to cross Nick's mind is, _he's so YOUNG._  
  
Stanford, as Bill's prodigy introduces himself-- "Call me Ford--" is beside himself with joy to see Nick when he arrives, pumping his arm up and down when he offers a shake. "The Glasses! Just like in the prophecy...! Bill _told_ me to expect an assistant to show up today. I'm so excited to finally meet you!"  
  
Nick curls his other hand behind his head bashfully, chuckling despite himself. "I'm flattered. What all has he said about me?"  
  
"Only that you were the first human in this entire generation who ever let Bill into your body!" Ford's eyes are shining with curious glee. "What was it like?"  
  
"Oh. Well," Nick stumbles, remembering so many years ago. "He's… quite the hedonist, that Bill. There was an awful lot of..." He squints. "Vomiting?"  
  
"Huh!" says Ford, nodding. His lip curls, as he looks off to the side. "That… actually explains some things. If I may ask, how did you discover him?"  
  
"My grandpapa was always big into fairy tales and folk stories," Nick replies. "Only after he'd gone senile did he start telling us about a local legend that could solve your problems for you, if you knew how to summon him." He shrugs. "I guess I was the only kid in my family who took it to heart."  
  
"Fascinating," Ford says, reaching into his trenchcoat pocket for a red leather-bound book he scribbles something down into.  
  
A shriek echoes from behind them, like claws on a chalkboard. Ford's car is dragged into the woods by a giant, otherworldly hand, never to be seen again.  
  
"Oof. Second time this year," Ford remarks, adjusting his glasses. "Don't suppose I could bum a ride?" he asks Nick humbly.  
  
\------  
  
Then there's the night about a week in, when Nick's wrapping up the paperwork for Oregon's hazardous substance handling licenses, and Ford comes down the basement steps with a snifter in each hand. Whatever the goblets are brimming with, Nick can smell the alcohol when Ford sets one down on his desk.  
  
Nick quirks a smile. "What's the occasion?"  
  
Ford's gaze is glued to the floor. He takes a long swig from the glass he's still holding, then swishes the remaining amber liquid round and around until his eyes close. "Bill and I were just having a chat upstairs."  
  
"Ah." Nick takes a slow, testing sip from his snifter. Shudders and licks his lips at the burn of fine cognac. "How was the nap?"  
  
"He told me about your... history," Ford presses on. "How he got you to come here."  
  
Nick's drawl is more of a guilty "Ahhhhh..." this time. He smooths a nervous hand down his tie, adding, "That's not a... a problem, is it?"  
  
Ford sighs into his drink and takes another swig. He stares into what's left of it. "There was a roommate I had, back in college. Brilliant fellow. Named Fiddleford McGucket. We used to... fool around, some nights. Crawling into each other's bed, feeling around under the sheets." He gestures vaguely with an arm. "Horny teenager stuff."  
  
He's silent until Nick prods him with a gentle "Uh huh?"  
  
"I always wish I could've done more," Ford admits, and purses his lips, finally meeting his assistant's eyes. "Don't get me wrong, about the booze. I'm not trying to feed you liquor so you'll do what I say. You're..." He chooses his words carefully. "I don't think you're unattractive, at all. I just... didn't think anybody would ever think _I'm_ a catch, you know? Especially not another..."  
  
Ford trails off. He shakes the mostly-empty snifter in Nick's direction. "Is this weird? Is this too weird?"  
  
The sincerity of his confusion makes Nick's heart melt with long-ago familiarity. Nick's hand clasps over Ford's jittering one before the younger man can shatter the stem of the glass in his grip.  
  
"If this is weird," Nick says to him, sidling closer, "Then maybe I'm the kind of weird you've been waiting for." He smirks at Ford's reeling whimper. At the hardness pounding against his leg. Gets down on his knees, smoothing his stubbly cheek against the bulge pounding in Ford's jeans. He marvels at how _he’s_ finally the one making advances to someone so much younger than him as he breathes, "This for me?"  
  
Before they know it, they've fumbled their way upstairs to Ford's bedroom.  
  
The way Ford cries and carries on, grabbing the back of Nick's head and wailing with every twist of Nick's lips, you'd think the man's never gotten a blowjob in his life.  
  
Nick doesn't pry.  
  
He doesn't have to, as it turns out. As soon as they fall asleep in a haze of sweat and endorphins, Bill's floating up from the foot of their bed, flapping tiny angel wings and wielding a bow and arrow with a heart at the tip. "Well, well, well. Looks like _someone's_ been getting nice and acquainted." The triangle pulls back the bow, aiming for Ford's head. "Want an even closer look?"  
  
"Bill! _No!"_ Ford shouts, jerking his hand up. "Please, not yet--"  
  
They're standing in a cornfield.  
  
Ford pulls at his hair with an anxious whine, watching the crop circles flattening to the ground wherever he steps. Children's cackling floats through the air in a mocking gibberish as Ford steps his way over to Nick, one perfect circle at a time. His assistant looks puzzled, but not scared. "I didn't want Bill to show you this so soon..."  
  
Nick blinks, looking down at the circle flattened at Ford's feet. "You've got two shadows," he remarks, pointing. He squints at the broken swingset in the distance. "Where are we?"  
  
A child version of Ford looks up at Nick, tears brimming behind taped-together glasses, and sniffles. "Don't leave me just 'cause I'm a freak!" the boy cries, pawing at Nick's suit shirt with his tarantula-like claw hands. "It's not fair! _Everybody_ leaves!"  
  
Nick gets down on one knee to hug the poor kid, which only makes the boy wail harder into his shoulder.  
  
"Hey," Nick tells him, rubbing his back gingerly. "You're no freak. Any more than I am."  
  
And like a secret password's been loosed between the two, they part to see a glaring crisscrossed void all around them. Little grayscale Ford shivers beside a grayscale child Nicodemus, who recognizes the landscape all too well.  
  
Little Nick's eyes widen in terror. He grabs Ford's arm. _"Run!"_  
  
The pair dash in a straight line past rows and rows of a graph paper world, with any swerve to the left or right punished by gigantic fists and hammers cratering the squares from the sky, barely missing them. They finally see a doorway in the distance.  
  
"Get inside! Hurry!" yells little Nick.  
  
They scarcely miss being smashed as they scurry inside to huddle against each other in the darkness. "Smells like... ugh! Mothballs," Ford sputters, still panting.  
  
"It's Grandmama's linen closet," Nick says as he curls a musty gray sweater around his body from upon the ground nearby. "It's stuffy, but it's safe." He looks at the glaring light from outside, wincing. "Not like out there. Out there, you need to be _perfect_. Or who _knows_ what'll get you."  
  
"Well. I'm not perfect, either," little Ford offers, nudging himself over to drape one of the sweater sleeves around his own neck.  
  
When they both wake up in Ford's bed, they've been crying in their sleep, arms locked around each other.  
  
"Was that..." Nick starts.  
  
"The Mindscape," answers Ford quietly.  
  
They look into each other's eyes, then hug tighter.  
  
\-------  
  
It doesn't take long after that for Nick to end up sharing Ford's bed, and even less time before they're panting over each other's bodies on the mattress one night, both their crotches slick and shiny with lube.  
  
Ford adjusts his glasses. "That was... a new experience," he says weakly, staring at the ceiling.  
  
Nick frowns from his spreadeagled perch above him, having just carefully slid himself out. "So you didn't like it?"  
  
"Well, I'm not saying... I mean, I don't dislike _you_ , but..."  
  
"Hey. It's all right," Nick says, snuggling against Ford's cheek with a smirk. He lies down next to Ford, slipping off his condom to knot it neatly at the top, and reaches for the bedside trash can. "Tell you the truth, I've never actually been much for being on top anyhow."  
  
"But you... like being penetrated," Ford clarifies.  
  
Nick shrugs against his pillow. "Believe me, everybody's different," he reassures him. "And I mean, I wasn't wild about rimming at first, myself. But I ended up loving it once I found somebody who was enthusiastic about it."  
  
"Rimming?" echoes Ford, confused.  
  
Nick whispers to him.  
  
"Your tongue goes WHERE?!" Ford gapes in disbelief.  
  
As it turns out, he can't get enough of it.  
  
\------  
  
Bill isn't one to be left out from the fun for long, of course. Though if Nick has any second thoughts about this whole deal, they always come when Bill joins in.  
  
"You're _sure_ you're sure about this?" Nick's ghost asks Stanford's one last time, as Bill uses Nick's body to upend a tank of gasoline over Ford's chest. Right over the oozing triangle with one eye he'd just help carve through the coarseness of Ford's chest hair with his pocket knife.  
  
"I would do _anything_ for Bill," Ford's ghost says stonefacedly, so Nick remains quiet. Even through Bill/Ford's shrieking, as the lit match in Nick's possessed hand hits home.  
  
"This was _not_ what I had in mind when Bill suggested a threesome," is all Nick can say.  
  
\------  
  
Nick turns out to be a _terrible_ engineer.  
  
Between Nick's wielding damaging more parts than it pieces together and the duo's time spent chasing monsters, Ford's portal project gets pushed behind schedule for days, then weeks-- and finally, before either of them realize it, it's been over a year. A year of days working on Journal 3, with all the fairy tales and folklore Nick's memories can help add to its pages, and night after night spent in Ford's bed, exploring wonders that have nothing to do with Hide-Behinds or hideous lake monster heads. Bill doesn't seem to mind, saying he's got 'all the time in the world,' so the two of them aren't worried, either.  
  
Either way, Nick fudges his way into government-approved toxic waste disposal clearance months ahead of schedule. Ford and he are celebrating when the phone rings, for Nick.  
  
"Really?" he says, his face ashen. He pulls his trousers back up. _"Bob?_ Wanted me? To...?" He clears his throat. "No, I understand. I'm sorry." He digs in his pocket and clacks a pen to readiness, looking around for some scratch paper Ford ends up handing him. "When?"  
  
He hangs up the phone with a heavy sigh. "An old friend of mine," he tells a curious-looking Ford. "No, no. He _wasn't_ old. Still in his early sixties. Some weird flu, they said. But apparently he didn't last a week in the hospital. They want me to be a pallbearer."  
  
Soon after Bob's funeral, the Shack's phone is ringing again. And again. There's Lenny, who Nick had always considered Ted's friend before his, so it doesn't faze him much. Then Tony, Nick's university friend from out East. And Jeff from San Francisco. All in the hospital. All dead before Nick can even make plans to see them.  
  
He doesn't say a word to Ford about the others, but as soon as he notices the pattern, the dread begins gnawing at him. Every chance Nick gets to strip off his lab coat and spread his legs for Ford, he takes it, even biting his lip and bearing the pain one night when they run out of lube, because he has no idea how much longer any of this will last.  
  
After all, Bill never said whether _he'd_ survive the plague or not.  
  
Then comes the afternoon Nick steps into the living room to hear the President's voice, only for Ford to switch the TV off before he can read the leader text on the screen.  
  
"They've got a name for that disease that's been going around," says Ford, his voice grave.  
  
"Yeah?" asks Nick.  
  
Ford's not looking at him. Nick can feel his heartbeat thudding in his face. _Why is Ford not looking at him._  
  
There's a stony pause before Ford says, "We have to stop."  
  
Nick doesn't answer. He just leans against the living room door frame.  
  
"It's only... certain people who're getting it," Ford continues gingerly. "People like... like you."  
  
"Oh. Like me," Nick says, his voice cracking with hurt. "That suddenly you're not, huh?"  
  
"Now, Nick. Listen to me." Ford raises his arms in defense. "I've been hearing things. Apparently _touching_ can't transmit it, but... I don't want either of us to end up as one of your phone calls you're always so sad after getting lately."  
  
"Oh god," cries Nick, both hands leaping to his face so Ford won't see the first tears stinging their way out. "You don't even know if I have it or not..."  
  
"Which is why we need to be more careful, from here on out. I can cook our meals separately. I can sleep on the couch, if you prefer the bedroom," Ford's voice continues on. "If you can just stay here until we finish the project, that's all I ask. We're so close now--"  
  
"Is that all I am to you?" Nick belts out, letting the waterworks come in a sudden rush of anger. "After all this time... Some tinkertoy you need to build your portal?!"  
  
"Nicodemus. Be _reasonable_ ," Ford says evenly. "I'm just doing what's best for--"  
  
"No. I know what you're doing," Nick says, pointing to him. "You've finally found an anomaly you can't explain. One you can't lock in a cage and write about in your journals. I'm too WEIRD for you now."  
  
"That's not it at _all!"_ says Ford, bunching six fingers through his hair in frustration. "Damn it, Nick, this is hard for me, too!"  
  
"Then kiss me. Show me you're not afraid of me!" Nick puckers up, closing his eyes and tossing his arms to either side.  
  
He stands there. Nothing touches him.  
  
Ford looks nervous when Nick opens eyes brimming with new tears. "They're not sure how it's spread yet," the younger man says, fidgeting. "Please try to understand..."  
  
"Oh, I understand plenty." Nick leaves to go grab his coat, unfazed by Ford's desperate look as he strides past him on his way out the front door.  
  
"Nick. No. I-I didn't want _this_ , come back--"  
  
"I'm _getting_ some _air."_ Nick slams the door behind him.  
  
He's driving. He's parking. He's at Lookout Point.  
  
The sun sets on him, still curled in a hunched fetal position against his driver's seat.  
  
When the world fades to gray around him, Nick doesn't bat an eye.  
  
"Well, well, wel--"  
  
_"What NOW?"_ Nick asks through grit teeth.  
  
"Eesh! Easy there, Glasses," Bill says. Nick looks down to see he's replaced the steering wheel of his car, with a giant eyeball squinting at him from the center. "I told you a massive mysterious plague would start enveloping this world. I never said it would be _easy!"_  
  
"Couldn't you have warned me it was only going to hit gay people?!" Nick's hands fall over his face. "It doesn't matter. Ford thinks I'm some kind of disease carrier now. Whatever spark we had, it's over."  
  
Bill tilts his wheel self back and forth idly. "Unless I could give you some sort of... immunity."  
  
"You can do that?" Nick's palms drop away.  
  
"Sure thing! Just the two of you? It would be easy. You just need to give me something _I_ want."  
  
Nick's expression falters. "What would I have that you'd actually want?"  
  
"I've told you before how magical your blood is, right?" chirps Bill. "The third son, of a third son, of a third son. It's like _bottled_ good luck, if you know how to use it right. That'll be worth enough to cover you and Fordsy just _fine."_  
  
Nick's familiar enough with Bill's particular brand of gross to not be put off by the idea in the slightest. "My blood. You've got it," he nods.  
  
"Another happy customer!" Bill says with mirth in his voice, raising his arm to shake Nick's hand firmly. As still shots of white blood cells dash across Bill's triangle face, Nick howls and twists at the sudden heat rushing through his body.  
  
"Ta-daaaah!" Bill says, courtseying in midair.  
  
Nick opens his eyes to see a perfect copy of himself writhing soundlessly in the passenger's seat, down to the tiniest blood vessel. _Only_ the blood vessels, in fact.  
  
A snap of Bill's fingers, and the blood-Nick's being vacuumed into the lips suddenly replacing Bill's eye. They finish with a wet smack, then blink back to an eye again. "Viral immunity for two, just as ordered."  
  
Bill points at a shaken-looking Nick, suddenly as serious as a triangle with no facial features besides an eye can. "And don't you try being heroes, when it comes to this plague. You don't have the kind of trade bait I'd need to save _everyone_. Your cells are going to dissolve the second they hit a petri dish, from now on."  
  
Nick shudders in his seat, frightened from the display, yet cautiously happy. "And you'll tell Ford what I did? So he'll believe me?"  
  
"Sure!" says Bill, tossing a stickly hand and rolling his eye. "What's the worst that could happen from you suddenly losing all your good luck, am I right?"  
  
\------  
  
If only the rope tied around the portal-testing dummy hadn't snagged around Nick's leg...  
  
"Hold on, buddy!" yells Ford, pulling with all his might to get Nick from where he's stuck headfirst in the portal.  
  
As Nick curls onto his side like a shivering shrimp upon the lab floor, Ford demands, "What is it?! What did you see?"  
  
Bill's laughter is still ringing in Nicodemus's ears. He hunches over further, making a brittle whimpering sound, shaking his head back and forth helplessly.  
  
"Nothing I say's going to change your mind," he finally murmurs. He grinds his palms against his bare eyelids and raises a shaky arm to point at the machine. _"Hell itself's_ going to come out of that portal, and you won't believe me. I trusted that demon every step of the way, and he's finally found a way into my mind _forever_ , and you won't care..."  
  
"Nick! Nick, get ahold of yourself. You're not making any sense!" Ford stares with concern at his assistant, who's been making backwards nonsense noises since he was pulled free.  
  
Nick calms down at last. It's an otherworldly sort of calm, eerie to witness, wide-eyed and silent, as if he can see something Ford can't. "He said this would be the easier way," is all Ford can get out of him that night.  
  
Around four in the morning, the thought occurs to Nick: wouldn't it be great to have a device you could point at your head and forget everything that happened in a day?  
  
Wouldn't it be great to know how to make one?  
  
Instead, Ford finds Nick on the floor of the lab later that night, the elephant rifle from Ford's gun cabinet propping up the wet remains of Nick's head and neck.  
  
\------  
  
_~ a mysterious pyramid glowing in the sky, 2012 ~_  
  
Ford wipes his brow after spray-painting the final touches to the Cipher Wheel's circle. "Find your spots and hold hands, everyone! This is a mystical energy circuit."  
  
Dipper looks down at the picture of the ice bag. "'Ice'? Who's Ice?"  
  
"The symbols needn't all be literal, Dipper. It just needs to be somebody cool in the face of danger."  
  
"Wen-dy! Wen-dy!" Gravity Falls's teens shout.  
  
"Woo!" Wendy exclaims, raising her arms in a victory pose as she takes her place in the circle.  
  
"Much like the Spectacles need to be someone..." Ford trails off, eyes darting across the room with dawning alarm. A frown gapes across his face. "Of course. The _Glasses_. Oh, Nicodemus..."  
  
"Great Uncle Ford? What's wrong?" Mabel asks, picking up on the sudden panic in Ford's eyes.  
  
"One of us is missing," Ford declares. "And it's all my fault. We're no match for Bill like this--"  
  
"You. Don't. Say!" the newly three-dimensional pyramid gloats from the nearest window, swinging around the Mystery Shack's totem pole with a hand the size of a house. He floats closer. "I _love_ it when my enemies gather in one place, then give up in front of me!"  
  
The resistance falls under Bill's fingerbolts like so many piñatas full of meat and bone.  
  
\------  
  
_~ back in 1982 ~_  
  
Bill was there at his shoulder, leaning in as though to share a secret. "Look. You and I both know you'd rather take orders forever than not have somebody else you can blame for screwing up. Don't try playing noble half a century into the game, kiddo."  
  
"No, I mean it," Nick protested, swishing his palm out in front of him. "I want out of whatever it is you're planning!"  
  
"Hah...?" said Bill, and tilted diagonally in confusion. "Look..." He chuckled to himself. "You honestly must not understand what I'm telling you. I'm giving you a cheat code for the entire rest of your _life_ here. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"  
  
Nick paused. "I know it is," he said slowly. "But it wouldn't mean anything to me if I didn't make my own choices to get there."  
  
"Glasses...!" Bill all but growled, growing in size and redness until his eye was all Nick could see. "I'm giving you the chance to be a freaking _main character_ here!!"  
  
"And I don't want it," Nick said, rolling away from Bill to the other side of his bed. "Go find some other toy to play with."  
  
If Bill's sudden silence didn't make Nick uneasy, the laughter that followed definitely did.  
  
Nick turned around to see Bill floating over an astral chessboard, swishing a finger back and forth to change the shape of two particular pawns. "Oh. Ohh, this is TOO good. It actually works out _better_ this way! An old college buddy who's good with mechanics?" The triangle all but cackled. "Congratulations, Glasses. You just made the apocalypse _so_ much easier!"  
  
The skinny brown-haired man in a tweet suit suddenly floating dormant before Bill was a complete stranger to Nick, but he still felt a connection to him somehow, as if in some distant dream.  
  
"Old Glasses, meet New Glasses, yadda yadda," Bill remarked, as the stranger's eyes fluttered open.  
  
"Oh, my stars," he said with a distinct Southern twang, as he glanced about Nick's bedroom. He adjusted the small, round frames on his nose. "Never dreamed of lyin' around in bed before!"  
  
"Yeah, yeah. Go back to sleep, Glasses. Big phone call coming for you tomorrow," Bill said. With a snap of tiny black fingers, the stranger disappeared in a puff of blue smoke curls.  
  
"Guess this is where we say goodbye, _Nick."_ Bill leaned upon a glowing cane, looking down on his former partner. "Tell me. How does it feel to've just made your existence _entirely. worthless,_ and you've only got yourself to blame?"  
  
At first, Nick's words catch in his throat.  
  
"Guess I'll have to see, won't I?" he finally says, refusing to look Bill in the eye before he's sound asleep at last.  
  
\------  
  
_~ a nameless apartment duplex in Gravity Falls, 1982 ~_  
  
The pillows around him were cold when Nicodemus woke up.  
  
He stirred under the covers rubbing his eyes, and feeling more energetic than he had in days.  
  
_What an odd dream_ , he thought. He rose from his bed, shuffling down the stairs.  
  
And paused, seeing the hideous brass rooster sculpture next to the urn upon the living room mantelpiece.  
  
"Thank you," he found himself blurting to the urn. "For everything."  
  
He made his way to the kitchen. He _must've_ gotten some phone messages while he'd been asleep...  
  
\------  
  
_~ a nameless nightmare realm beyond our knowledge of space and time ~_  
  
"I can't BELIEVE it!!" Bill shrieked, flashing red as a gashed jugular.  
  
An entire generation of particularly shrill bird creatures gestated in floating wombs around him, burst free, were rapid-aged to adulthood, and squealed in agony, silenced as one by a slam of the triangle's hand.  
  
"I mean, the utter _gall--"_  
  
The meekest of Bill's cronies-- specifically, the one who'd drawn the shortest straw-- drew closer to the throne of otherworldly intestines Bill crouched upon.  
  
"S-something wrong, boss?" Keyhole asked.  
  
"How _dare_ he!" roared Bill, his one eye fixed on the swirling vortex before him. "I mean, how petty do you have to _be..."_  
  
Keyhole glanced into the portal.  
  
A simple human funeral, if a slightly crowded one. Nothing seemed amiss.  
  
"You want to... talk about it, or..." offered the lesser demon, fidgeting his fingers together.  
  
Bill silenced his groupie with a firebolt to the skull, wringing his stickly hands in aggravation. "He was a snivelling little pawn, at _best_. I gave him the only spine he'd ever had..." Bill growled, prompting 8-Ball and Pyronica to back well away from where he was perched. "How can so many people be sad he's dead?!"  
  
Amorphous Shape caught only a glimpse of the tombstone before they were vaporized from Bill's realm for the next fortnight:  
  
_Nicodemus Smith_  
_1934 - 1998_  
_\- He sleeps peacefully -_


End file.
